Word Origin & History

1670s, from Greek orphikos "pertaining to Orpheus," master musician of Thrace, son of Eagrus and Calliope, husband of Eurydice, whose name (of unknown origin) was associated with mystic doctrines. Related: Orphism.

Example Sentences for orphic

"Starving will kill as dead as hanging," was Lieders's orphic response to this.

And Orphic purity was mainly, though not entirely, the result of moral discipline.

We may also take it that he was familiar with all sorts of Orphic and Pythagorean sectaries.

The Orphic priests of old Greece most nearly resembled the shamans of the savages.

To them any version of the Orphic myth is tinglingly credible.

This he considered was The Excursion, an Orphic song indeed!

It ran in the direction of Orphic and Bacchic Thrace to the north.

These were the Orphic hymns, which were sung by the Lycomed at Athens.

Of the Orphic doctrines we are able to give a somewhat better account.